Hugh Dowding

Hugh Dowding (24 April 1882-15 February 1970) was an Air Chief Marshal of the United Kingdom who commanded the RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain in World War II.

Biography
Hugh Dowding was born in Moffat, Scotland on 24 April 1882, and he was commissioned into the British Army artillery in 1900. He graduated from the Army Staff College in 1912 and served in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I, taking command of the No. 16 Squadron in July 1915. He was promoted to Brigadier-General on 23 June 1917, and he was permanently commissioned into the newly-formed Royal Air Force in 1919. In 1936, he was appointed commander of the RAF Fighter Command, and he disagreed with Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin's statement that "the bomber will always get through", favoring fighter planes. He was due to retire in June 1939, but he stayed on due to the tense international situation, and he led the RAF Fighter Command at the Battle of Britain in 1940. He used a Fabian strategy to destroy the attacking Luftwaffe forces piecemeal, and he opposed set-piece battles proposed by advocates of the "Big Wing" strategy. For this reason, he was replaced by Sholto Douglas as RAF Fighter Command leader in November 1940, and he retired in 1942. He was passed over from promotion to Marshal of the Royal Air Force for his promotion of a conspiracy theory that Big Wing advocates had conspired to achieve his removal, and he died in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England in 1970 at the age of 87.